Stores donate unsalable food to local food banks, organizations

Ever wonder where all those beautiful cupcakes and muffins go after stores close and they can't be sold the next day?

Don't even think about dumpster diving out back, because for the most part unsalable food at local stores is donated through a well-honed system that sends it to the needy.

Those items include bread and baked goods that have a short shelf life, food past its expiration date that still can be eaten and even flowers.

The Virginia Peninsula Foodbank is a major recipient of such donations locally. The Foodbank picks up from local Walmart stores daily and from others several times a week on a rotating schedule, according to Foodbank Chief Development Officer Michele Benson-Howell.

"We have partnerships with most of the retail stores in the area and pick up from them daily," Benson-Howell wrote in an email. "Some are picked up directly by our trucks, and others are picked up by our partner agencies who distribute the food into the community.

"It takes a lot of planning, but we have a really good system in place at this point."

Local stores that make unsalable merchandise available for donation do so as part of their corporate policies through pre-arranged agreements with local charitable groups. Most stores have applications for the donations available on their corporate websites and require paperwork to show that an organization has tax-exempt status.

Costco in Newport News generally gives its unsalable bakery items to the Foodbank, according to spokeswoman Cynthia Gregory.

Farm Fresh in Poquoson works with the Foodbank and has made donations within the city to Trinity United Methodist Church for its chicken noodle night and to the Parish Thrift Shop food pantry, according to store manager Chris Probst. The store also has pet food packs available that customers can purchase for donation to local animal shelters.

"Some of these things have been in place before I even got here," Probst said. "So I'm just carrying the torch because they've been going on for so long."

The Foodbank picks up from the store a couple of times a week and is the primary recipient, Probst said.

"We're not allowed to give discards to customers," he said. "It's not even a tax deductions, it's all just discard donations of things we can't sell."

Bret Dorsey, manager at Fresh Market in Newport News, acknowledged his company's policy of donating to local food banks.

"We do donate every day to the Foodbank and some churches," Dorsey said. "We do that as a company."

It's not just food either.

In the past the Sunshine Organization in Newport News has delivered flowers to local nursing homes using donated blooms from Costco, Farm Fresh and Trader Joe's, according to founder Nicola Fuller.

The Poquoson Animal Welfare Sanctuary receives free food for its cats through Farm Fresh customers' purchase of the food packs, said PAWS treasurer Rhonda Hurr. PAWS is still waiting to attain tax-exempt status.

"We're just so grateful, very grateful for the support of Farm Fresh," Hurr said. "They were the first ones to ever offer to help us with the animals with food, as a business. We have a lot of support in Poquoson, small businesses.

"But the bigger businesses usually don't until you're much better known. So we're very grateful to them for sharing and being so generous to us."

Williams can be reached by phone at 757-247-4644.

Store donations

Local stores that make unsalable merchandise available for donation do so through pre-arranged agreements with local charitable groups. Most stores have applications for the donations available on their corporate websites.